Sep 29th, 2008

Woke up today at 8 - we were going to pick the rental car up at 9, but our young heroes were still sleeping. A started with the refrain "ab tu ladkion ki tarah jaldi utho jaldi utho mat bol - kabhi aath baj gaye utho, kabhi nau baj gaye utho". Looks like he was missing Swati! By the time they woke up and we reached the shop, it was 10.

Mustafa, the shop operator still had us booked on a hyundai getz, and had it cleaned up. We told him we wanted the ford focus - for that we'd have to wait for the owner to come in. The car was personal and in case of an accident, we would have to tell that we were friends of the owner Meriam. She came in shortly and looked anything but friendly. By 10:20 we headed out on our way to Gallipoli, and realized that there is a ferry to Yalova which could take us half way - however, on reaching the ferry, we realized it was booked through the day, so we set out driving with KJ on the wheels.

The drive was mostly smooth - had regular supply of snacks on the way. Arnab refused to stop for lunch "kya ladkion ki tarah khana nahin milta to phati hai kya" - !?$b?* - yeh kya hai - Looks like Arnab was really missing the fond memories of women in his life.

The roads were actually good - touched 170kmph, reached Lapseki after 500km from where we would have to take a ferry with car to Gelibolu. It was hard to find english speaking people there to figure what to do, when KJ found a tourist group which guided us. The salesman in KJ found the perfect prospecting criteria here on "You should only talk to young women - they are they only ones who know english" - theek hai bhai!

Reached Gelibolu and saw a sign "Instanbul 200km" - looks like we had come around the Marmara sea unnecessarily and driven over 500! The drive to gallipoli war memorials was smooth.

The area around there was very scenic, with the Anzec cove providing a perfect backdrop to the serene undertone of the place. Thousands of australian, new zealand and british (including Indians) had fought the Turks here in world war 1. It was regarded as one of the most recent memories of a truly heroic and gentleman's war. The Turkish "father of the nation" Ataturk had held the front for several days before the enemy retreated, and hence the place finds reverence from turks. The contrast between the Indian "father" Gandhi and Ataturk was obvious - one a peace hardliner and the other earning his glory in war - but both managing to liberate vast people, and commanding global respect. The cemeteries and trenches still bring alive what was a battle well fought on both sides.

A decided that he wanted to try some offroad stuff with the ford, and it started to smoke. On the next hill, the car gave up and wouldn't budge. Looks like the gear/transmission wasn't engaging - ah! Perfect timing - there was not a soul around at 7:30pm. We backed the car down and called Mustafa - being a single shop car rental, he couldn't do anything and asked us to see if we could find a mechanic. We decided we couldn't and picked up our backpacks for a long trek to the camp. A was actually enjoying the fact that there was some adventure coming into this backpack trip "ladkian hoti to phat jaati abhi". Suddenly, it occurred that we could call the nearest hotel and ask for help. It worked - people here are really very helpful, and a taxi with mechanic were on their way. Soon we saw them, and within two minutes, the mechanic had decided he couldn't fit it now, and tom was holiday so perhaps we could get the car after a couple of days! We got them to talk to Mustafa who convinced them to have it towed now and try and fix by tomorrow. Anil, the taxi driver was very helpful and got us back to Eceabat. He insisted we stay overnight in his town (i think he felt bad that we wouldn't) but we thought taking a ferry to Canakkale might give us some better nightlife - literally ran to the ferry which was going to depart in 2 minutes.

But the ferry just won't budge. We went up and had some snacks. KJ found another young woman to chat up and find out about hotels and nightlife, and then she suddenly left. Why wasn't the ferry moving? Everyone started leaving and then the ferry restaurant owner cane in asked us to leave - ok, let's go sit on the lower deck. We went down and realized this wasn't the place we boarded - we were already in Canakkale and we hadn't realized the ferry was even moving - all of us must have been very tired (except KJ, who was just plain excited chatting up the farmer's daughter).

We started finding a hotel - there was a youth hostel, but only with dorms, so we'd land up disturbing others. Finally found a cheap hotel, and dumped our luggage there, to head out find a bar/club. We asked a person on the way, who offered us to walk to a club! People go out of their way to help you here. The club though was dead so we decided to have dinner at Benzin restaurant below.

Benzin turned out to be a great place - very alive, young people. We ordered ourselves the local drink, raki, which tasted great (made of saunf, I think) and some local food. A dug out instructions to play backgammon and we had our initiation game there - the best man won!

About midnight, back to the hotel - A is still remembering "ladkian hoti to yeh sab nahin kar sakte the"...